One day in early spring the doctor surprised his wife by asking her if
she would like to take a drive.
"In March? The roads are not passable yet, surely."
But the doctor assured her that the roads were getting pretty good
except in spots. "I have such a long journey ahead of me today that I
want you to ride out as far as Centerville and I can pick you up as I
come back."
"That's seven or eight miles. I'll go. I can stop at Dr. Parkin's and
chat with Mrs. Parkin till you come."
Accordingly a few minutes later the doctor and Mary were speeding along
through the town which they soon left far behind them.
About two miles out they saw a buggy down the road ahead of them which
seemed to be at a stand-still. When they drew near they found a woman at
the horses' heads with a broken strap in her hand. She was gazing
helplessly at the buggy which stood hub-deep in mud. She recognized the
doctor and called out, "Dr. Blank, if ever I needed a doctor in my life,
it's now."
"Stuck fast, eh?"
The doctor handed the reins to his wife and got out.
"I see--a broken single-tree. Well, I always unload when I get stuck, so
the first thing we do we'll take this big lummox out of here," he said
picking his way to the buggy. The lummox rose to her feet with a broad
grin and permitted herself to be taken out. She was a fat girl about
fourteen years old.
"My! I'll bet she weighs three hundred pounds," observed the doctor when
she was landed, which was immediately resented. Then he took the
hitching-rein and tied the tug to the broken end of the single-tree;
after which he went to the horses' heads and commanded them to "Come
on." They started and the next instant the vehicle was on terra firma.
Mother and daughter gave the doctor warm thanks and each buggy went its
separate way.
Mary was looking about her. "The elms have a faint suspicion that spring
is coming; the willows only are quite sure of it," she said, noting
their tender greenth which formed a soft blur of color, the only color
in all the gray landscape. No, there is a swift dash of blue, for a jay
has settled down on the top of a rail just at our travelers' right.
Soon they were crossing a long and high bridge spanning a creek which
only a week before had been a raging torrent; the drift, caught and held
by the trunks of the trees, and the weeds and grasses all bending in one
direction, told the story. But the waters had subsided and now lay in
deep, placid pools.
"Stop, John, quick!" commanded Mary when they were about half way
across. The doctor obeyed wondering what could be the matter. He looked
at his wife, who was gazing down into the pool beneath.
"I suppose I'm to stop while you count all the fish you can see."
"I was looking at that lovely concave sky down there. See those two
white clouds floating so serenely across the blue far, far below the
tip-tops of the elm trees."
The doctor drove relentlessly on.
"Another mudhole," said Mary after a while, "but this time the travelers
tremble on the brink and fear to launch away."
When they came up they found a little girl standing by the side of the
horse holding up over its back a piece of the harness. She held it in a
very aimless and helpless way. "See," said Mary, "she doesn't know what
to do a bit more than I should. I wonder if she can be alone."
The doctor got out and went forward to help her and discovered a young
man sitting cozily in the carriage. He glanced at him contemptuously.
"Your harness is broken, have you got a string?" he asked abruptly.
"N-n-o, I haven't," said the youth feeling about his pockets.
"Take your shoe-string. If you haven't got one I'll give you mine," and
he set his foot energetically on the hub of the wheel to unlace his
shoe.
"Why, I've got one here, I guess," and the young man lifted a reluctant
foot. The doctor saw and understood. The little sister was to fix the
harness in order to save her brother's brand new shoes from the mud.
"You'd better fix that harness yourself, my friend, and fix it strong,"
was the doctor's parting injunction as he climbed into the buggy and
started on.
"I don't like the looks of this slough of despond," said Mary. The next
minute the horses were floundering through it, tugging with might and
main. Now the wheels have sunk to the hubs and the horses are straining
every muscle.
"Merciful heaven!" gasped Mary. At last they were safely through, and
the doctor looking back said, "That is the last great blot on our
civilization--bad roads."
After a while there came from across the prairie the ascending,
interrogative _boo-oo-m_ of a prairie chicken not far distant, while
from far away came the faint notes of another. And now a different note,
soft, melodious and mournful is heard.
"How far away do you think that dove is?" asked the doctor.
"It sounds as if it might be half a mile."
"It is right up here in this tree in the field."
"Is it," said Mary, looking up. "Yes, I see, it's as pretty and soft as
its voice. But I'm getting sunburned, John. How hot a March day can
get!"
"Only two more miles and good road all the way."
A few minutes more and Mary was set down at Centerville, "I'll be back
about sunset," announced her husband as he drove off.
A very pleasant-faced woman answered the knock at the door. She had a
shingle in her hand and several long strips of muslin over her arm. She
smilingly explained that she didn't often meet people at the door with a
shingle but that she was standing near the door when the knock came.
Mary, standing by the bed and removing hat and gloves, looked about her.
"What are you doing with that shingle and all this cotton and stuff,
Mrs. Parkin?" she asked.
"Haven't you ever made a splint?"
"A splint? No indeed, I'm not equal to that."
"That's what I'm doing now. There's a boy with a broken arm in the
office in the next room."
"Oh, your husband has his office here at the house."
"Yes, and it's a nuisance sometimes, too, but one gets used to it."
"I'll watch you and learn something new about the work of a doctor's
wife."
"You'll learn then to have a lot of pillow slips and sheets on hand. Old
or new, Dr. Parkin just tears them up when he gets in a hurry--it
doesn't matter to him what goes."
The doctor's wife put cotton over the whole length of the shingle and
wound the strips of muslin around it; then taking a needle and thread
she stitched it securely. Mary sat in her chair watching the process
with much interest. "You have made it thicker in some places than in
others," she said.
"Yes; that is to fit the inequalities of the arm." Mary looked at her
admiringly. "You are something of an artist," she observed.
Just as Mrs. Parkin finished it her husband appeared in the doorway.
"Is it done?" he asked.
"It's just finished."
"May I see you put it on, Doctor?" asked Mary, rising and coming
forward.
"Why, good afternoon, Mrs. Blank. I'm glad to see you out here. Yes,
come right in. How's the doctor?"
"Oh, he is well and happy--I think he expects to cut off a foot this
afternoon."
A boy with a frightened look on his face stood in the doctor's office
with one sleeve rolled up. The doctor adjusted the fracture, then
applied the splint while his wife held it steady until he had made it
secure. When the splint was in place and the boy had gone a messenger
came to tell the doctor he was wanted six miles away.
About half an hour afterward a little black-eyed woman came in and said
she wanted some more medicine like the last she took.
"The doctor's gone," said Mrs. Parkin, "and will not be back for several
hours."
"Well, you can get it for me, can't you?"
"Do you know the name of it?"
"No, but I believe I could tell it if I saw it," said the patient, going
to the doctor's shelves and looking closely at the bottles and phials
with their contents of many colors. She took up a three-ounce bottle.
"This is like the other bottle and I believe the medicine is just the
same color. Yes, I'm sure it is," she said, holding it up to the light.
Mary looked at her and then at Mrs. Parkin.
"I wouldn't like to risk it," said the latter lady.
"Oh, I'm not afraid. I don't want to wait until the doctor comes and I
know this must be like the other. It's exactly the same color."
"My good woman," said Mary, "you _certainly_ will not risk that. It
might kill you."
"No, Mrs. Dawson, you must either wait till the doctor comes or come
again," said Mrs. Parkin. The patient grumbled a little about having to
make an extra trip and took her leave.
When the door had closed behind her Mary asked the other doctor's wife
if she often had patients like that.
"Oh, yes. People come here when the doctor is away and either want me to
prescribe for them or to prescribe for themselves."
"You don't do it, do you?"
"Sometimes I do, when I am perfectly sure what I am doing. Having the
office here in the house so many years I couldn't help learning a few
things."
"I wouldn't prescribe for anything or anybody. I'd be afraid of killing
somebody." About an hour later Mary, looking out of the window, saw a
wagon stopping at the gate. It contained a man and a woman and two
well-grown girls.
"Hello!" called the man.
"People call you out instead of coming in. That is less trouble,"
observed Mary. The doctor's wife went to the door.
"Is Doc at home?"
"No, he has gone to the country."
"How soon will he be back?"
"Not before supper time, probably."
The man whistled, then looked at his wife and the two girls.
"Well, Sally," he said, "I guess we'd better git out and wait fur 'im."
"W'y, Pa, it'll be dark long before we git home, if we do."
"I can't help that. I'm not agoin' to drive eight miles tomorry or next
day nuther."
"If ye'd 'a started two hour ago like I wanted ye to do, maybe Doc'd 'a
been here and we c'd 'a been purty nigh home by this time."
"Shet up! I told ye I wasn't done tradin' then."
"It don't take _me_ all day to trade a few aigs for a jug o' m'lasses
an' a plug o' terbacker."
For answer the head of the house told his family to "jist roll out now."
They rolled out and in a few minutes they had all rolled in. Mrs. Parkin
made a heroic effort not to look inhospitable which made Mary's heroic
effort not to look amused still more heroic.
When at last the afternoon was drawing to a close Mary went out into the
yard to rest. She wished John would come. Hark! There is the ring of
horses' hoofs down the quiet road. But these are white horses, John's
are bays. She turns her head and looks into the west. Out in the meadow
a giant oak-tree stands between her and the setting sun. Its upper
branches are outlined against the grey cloud which belts the entire
western horizon, while its lower branches are sharply etched against the
yellow sky beneath the grey.
What a calm, beautiful sky it was!
She thought of some lines she had read more than once that morning ... a
bit from George Eliot's Journal:
"How lovely to look into that brilliant distance and see the ship on the
horizon seeming to sail away from the cold and dim world behind it right
into the golden glory! I have always that sort of feeling when I look at
sunset. It always seems to me that there in the west lies a land of
light and warmth and love."
A carriage was now coming down the road at great speed. Mary saw it was
her husband and went in to put on her things. In a few minutes more she
was in the buggy and they were bound for home. It was almost ten o'clock
when they got there. The trip had been so hard on the horses that all
the spirit was taken out of them. The doctor, too, was exceedingly
tired. "Forty-two miles is a long trip to make in an afternoon," he
said.
"I hope Jack and Maggie are not up so late."
"It would be just like them to sit up till we came."
The buggy stopped; the door flew open and Jack and Maggie stood framed
in the doorway with the leaping yellow firelight for a background.